Ives: Three Places in New England and other works

Copy at Case Memorial Library
David Schiff wrote in the Nation: "The most striking change in Ives's image concerns the scope of his oeuvre, which was enriched by the publication in 1999 of James Sinclair's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives. … Ives heavily revised much of his music, and Sinclair culled from the revisions worthy variant readings of even familiar, frequently heard compositions. … And if you listen to the fine recording of the familiar Three Places in New England by Michael Tilson Thomas (our reigning Ives-meister) and the San Francisco Symphony, you may be surprised to hear a chorus singing in the third movement, 'The Housatonic at Stockbridge.' The choral melody, taken from Ives's song with the same title and already present in the symphony as an instrumental line, lifts Ives's picturesque triptych into the realm of Beethoven's Ninth — or at least into the neighborhood of Ives's Fourth Symphony, which was once considered unplayable but is now widely considered to be the crowning glory of American symphonic composition, the musical counterpart of Moby-Dick or Leaves of Grass."